Cork

Eeek!

23 November, 2009
Posted in: Boys, Cork, Daniel, Family, Ireland, Princess

My children do not enjoy as diverse a diet as I did when I was their age. In part this is because I am not at all as good a cook as my mother and in part because they are the pickiest eaters in Ireland.

I am spending a couple of days with my parents (photos of flooding may follow, hold your breath) and this evening my mother cooked prawns for the offspring. It was then that I realised that they had never even had a frozen prawn before, let alone one still encased in its shell. They gazed in horrified fascination at the little bodies laid out for their delectation. They winced as I screwed off the thorax and pulled out the edible part. The Princess then began to create new bodies using the heads and pincers. The boys were too afraid to even touch them. So, your best guess, did they eat any dinner tonight?

Character Building Exercise

25 August, 2009
Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Work

My school was a breeding ground for excellent hockey players (including, in a very envy inducing way, my little cousin who went on to play for Munster and maybe even had an Irish trial, I can’t remember now) and the team always did well in the Munster schools’ tournament. Part of the reason for this was that all of the effort was focussed on the first team who were drawn from across the cohort of 500 girls. The school didn’t field a seconds team and those of us who didn’t make the first team hung around to provide training practice for the firsts. Not many did but, I suppose, those of us with a fondness for ritual humiliation stuck with it. It was particularly irritating to my mother as she and her fellow parents were paying – over many years – for the all-weather hockey pitch on which the ritual humiliation took place. We were trained by an elderly gentleman (I think that he must have been in his early 60s) who was adored by the firsts and whom I pretended to adore too, ever hopeful of making the first team. Let me remove the suspense now, I never did make the first team. Let me also remove some of the pathos, when I was in fifth year, someone’s mother, appalled by the way hockey was run in the school decided to start seconds and thirds teams and my last two years were spent happily travelling to matches in lower leagues (I was wing and the heart surgeon was inner – a lifetime’s friendship founded on her constant irritated observation that ‘grass is for cows’).

But let us go back to third year when I was still hanging around the fringes hoping against hope to make the first team. I went to every practice and I really had improved quite a bit. The gentleman trainer certainly knew my face, if not my name, and he had even, very occasionally, commented favourably on my play. At the end of the season, in April or May when, really, it was too hot to play hockey and we were all leaning exhausted, red and sweaty against the wall of the bicycle shed with jellied legs, our gentleman trainer announced that he was giving out prizes for achievements during the year. I didn’t have high hopes, clearly, and, indeed, the prizes went to the most likely candidates. The last prize, however, was for most improved player. I allowed myself to indulge in a moment of hope. It couldn’t possibly go to one of the first team becasuse they were all really, really good already. But it did, of course it did. Not one prize went to anyone who wasn’t on the first team. The unfairness of it stung me at the time but it had its own logic. Excellence was rewarded; anything else, however deserving, was not. It was that kind of school.

I’m still bitter. I could tell you what brought that little vignette to mind, but then I’d have to kill you.

Our holiday – because you care

24 August, 2009
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

And other people’s holiday photos are always sooo interesting.

Friday, August 7

We drove to East Cork. Over the details of the day long trip, I draw a veil other than to say that we had a wildly successful picnic en route and a stop with the Dutch Mama and family – she was visiting Mitchelstown, her ancestral home. Hurrah.

Saturday, August 8

We awoke in our friends’ delightful house which they had very kindly lent to us. Large, airy, sparsely, yet elegantly furnished, great books to read. I took in the two white sofas they had purchased and my heart sank somewhat. I spent the next week saying “No feet on the sofas; no markers on the sofas; no pens on the sofas; no food on the sofas.”

Sofas

Other than that, all was perfection in the house. A text message to friend M as to bin collection arrangements on day 2 elicited the alarming response that there were none and we were to bring our rubbish home with us. This ensured that thereafter, we visited my poor parents in Cork city every second day. Meet the litter tourists.

Weather was a little seedy but we had the long beach at Garryvoe to ourselves.

Sunday, August 9

We visisted my lucky parents with our rubbish. Children delighted to be reunited with my father’s exercise bike.

Monday, August 10

Ballycotton – all very pretty. Many lifeboats. Michael ate a cheese sandwich thereby expanding the range of foods he is willing to ingest by 100%.

Tuesday, August 11

An absolutely glorious day. Again, we had the beach across the road from the house to ourselves.
Beach

Beach 2

Later we investigated the farmers’ market in Middleton. Middleton which is about 30 minutes drive from where I grew up is not somewhere I would ever consider visiting under normal circumstances but it is surprisingly charming. Mr. Waffle and I went out to dinner in Ballymaloe which was disappointing. Into every life some rain must fall, I suppose.

Wednesday, August 12

Back to Cork. Hugely entertaining trip up Shandon.
Headphones
Note the way this image captures the safety headgear but not the bells. Sigh.
Here they are trying to play the bells. A number of possible tunes are given. Most people seem to go for Air Supply’s “All out of Love”. I wish I were joking. The people of Cork suffer greatly, particularly those who live within earshot of Shandon.

Shandon
Who would have thought? The butter museum, is, frankly, less than fascinating (FT says “do not miss” but I think the FT man was not accompanied by small children). I learnt a lot about the CAP from the DVD playing on a loop. Children had not seen tv since the previous Thursday and sat rapt in front of it. We brought more litter for my longsuffering parents and made them feed us.

Thursday, August 13

The culinary highlight of our holiday which on examination after two weeks away appears to be their only memory ocurred in Youghal . If you find yourself in Youghal (and I appreciate that might be unlikely), your trip is not complete without a visit to the Bay of Capri. Let joy be unconfined – the children loved this restaurant and so did we. I was keen to stroll around the town (historic little place, Walter Raleigh’s old stamping ground and all that). This wore out the troops.
Tower

They insisted on collapsing on the beach in the town which was small, stony and a little rough. This despite our attempts to persuade the children back to the car so that we might drive out to the really beautiful beach outside the town (possibly also a little rough – Youghal is that kind of town).

I am turning into my mother. At the water’s edge, a boy of about 13 was holding his little sister. This touching scene was marred by the tossing of a crisp packet in the water. Cunningly, I said to Daniel, “the little girl has dropped her crisp packet, will you pick it up for her?” He dutifully did. I felt sorry for young hoody as he was, obviously, a nice boy and it had not occurred to him that he would be called upon to take the crisp packet back and he had a bit of difficulty juggling it and baby. I, therefore, ignored further littering and, in due course, left the foreshore armed with several other crisp packets which he and his little sister had tossed out to sea. Am I unbearable? No, don’t tell me, I think I know the answer.

Friday, August 14

We took ourselves to Cobh. There was supposed to be a Regatta. We saw little sign of it. For as long as I can remember, Cobh has been a depressed, grim place. It could be lovely – it has many fine buildings but it’s not. A superliner had pulled up at the quayside and Americans were milling around filled with admirable but, in my view, unnecessary enthusiasm. I feel very disloyal writing this but there it is, I cannot understand why I keep going there hoping that it will improve. Sigh. We went to the Cobh experience. I wouldn’t exactly call it unmissable. Alright, I suppose, if you haven’t seen it before. The children watched the DVD on the maritime history of Cobh, like heroin addicts given a shot of methadone. A full week since they had seen the Power Rangers.

The trip to Cobh did give me a further opportunity to ponder the housing crisis. All around E. Cork there were loads of new housing estates. All empty or largely so. Do you think that these apartments will ever be ready?
apt
Did these people choose a good time to sell?
Castle
Yes, really, look more closely.
Castle 2
Suit DIY enthusiast etc.

The grimness of the morning was more than atoned for by the bizarre, yet delightful, Leahy’s fun farm. This had been adapted from farm use to a centre of entertainment. Its primary agricultural use was still very visible – the indoor play area featured what had once, clearly, been slurry pits. Mr. Leahy himself turned up as we were being shown around and he was lovely. On Mr. Waffle asking him when he got out of cows and into camels he said pithily, “2 years ago.” He had monkeys, puppies, kittens, sheep, llamas and snakes too. They were able to feed all of them except the snake. He pointed us in the direction of the tiny house where he had been born and brought up which is now a haven for all sorts of old bric-a-brac and brought back memories from my youth (sacred heart picture with flickering flame, scales with weights etc.). There was a mannequin in the bed in the bedroom dressed up as an old granny and she gave me a nasty shock. God it was tiny and it must have been grim. No wonder the farmers of Ireland decided en masse to build themselves new bungalows when the CAP money came through. The children adored every moment and kept asking to go back. Am very tempted to take them again in December when farmer Eddie gets Santa in – could only be fascinating, you must concede.
Snake

Saturday, August 15

Are you still there? Very dull aside but we found out the truth about Shanagarry pottery which has been mildly peplexing me and is of no interest to you (my blog etc.). It was supposed to be closed but it was open. Still terrifyingly expensive. I spoke to one of the staff as she wrapped my tasteful offering. Apparently Stephen Pearse decamped to Spain years ago (making it most unlikely that the stuff we got as wedding presents was thrown by the master or even when the master was in the country) and the business had been going downhill. The collapse in the economy was the final kick in the teeth. The bank are now running the operation and the staff don’t know from week to week whether they will be staying or going. Poor them. The assistant said that they were hopeful as the bank have taken on an extra potter. Where will it all end? No wonder the banks won’t lend to small businesses (allegedly), they’re too busy running them.

Had very elaborate lunch at my parents’ house in Cork where Michael utterly mortified me by sitting in my father’s chair and refusing to budge. That child has a will of iron and a mother of putty. An unfortunate combination.

Lads, that was only week 1. Week 2 in Kerry follows. On the edges of your seats, I’m sure.

Cork News

4 August, 2009
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

The Princess and I graced Cork briefly over the weekend. We went to the Lough to feed the birds. Guiltily, we brought grapes rather than stale bread – our usual offering. We were somewhat chastened by reports in the Examiner of the death of 40 swans from botulism. Unfortunately, other visitors did not seem to have read the report. Let me tell you that those swans (like the species I know best) do not know what’s good for them (I really wanted to write “what side their bread is buttered on” and I almost stopped myself). We cast our grapes upon the waters and they sank unnoticed and unloved while others got a great response from fresh bread. They even, kindly, offered some bread to the little girl who was bitterly chucking grapes in the water. We also tried some cherry tomatoes but swans and ducks don’t like those much either.

I had a look, with my parents, at the digital photographic archive of the National Library. What is really astonishing is how little Cork has changed in nearly 150 years. The layout of the streets is determined by the twisting of the river’s channels and the contours of the hills and the centre is very much the same. Although the city was burnt in 1920 by the Black and Tans, the new buildings that went up to fill the gaps fitted into the same streetscape and were not so radically different as to render the streets unrecogniseable in their previous incarnation.

Browsing through the photographs, we came across several of the papal nuncio’s visit to Cork. Specifically, several pictures which are set in a very well-known Cork institution. These are captioned “Papal Nuncio in Cork: Large crowd scenes (in grounds of Rochestown College ?) “. This building is most emphatically not Rochestown College. On seeing these my father and I laughed aloud and he said sagely, “ah yes, you must never trust anything from the great wen” as he has taken to calling Dublin. Gentle reader, can you identify the institution in this picture?

Papal Nuncio

If you can, if it is obvious, even to the internet, I think a strongly worded letter to the national library is called for. This brings me back to the problem of second cities everywhere which I always feel more acutely after visiting Cork. In Ireland, it sometimes feels that everything is run from Dublin and for Dublin. This impression is compounded by the national broadcaster, RTE, which rarely ventures outside the Dublin suburbs to report news, relying on the odd file recording to indicate national coverage (in the current climate they seem keen to show a longish queue outside the Cork dole office – same one, every time). Compared, however, to the Irish Times, RTE covers a wide range of the country. The Irish Times doesn’t even cover all of the Dublin suburbs let alone distant outposts like Cork. I note, however, that recently the Irish Times has been running articles about things to do in West Cork. Do not be deceived, this is merely to inform its Dublin readership. Certain Dubliners like to descend on West Cork en masse for their summer holidays to the intense chagrin of Cork city residents who regard it as their holiday destination. Annoyingly, the Dubliners tend to go to different places every year whereas Cork people tend to go religiously to the same place. This means that when you speak of West Cork with Dubliners, you are instantly at a disadvantage as you only know Goleen or Skibbereen after a childhood spent staring out the windows in the rain in these spots. Dubliners on the other hand speak with irritating confidence of Union Hall, Roscarberry, Skib (they will always use the local abbreviation), Clon (see, always) and Castletownbere and so on. And, to add insult to injury, they have also been in Mayo and Galway, where you have never been because you always went to Skibereen on your summer holidays. We are going to East Cork this summer, I don’t think I could stand the opprobium, if I ventured west with my little Dublin family.

Not so homogenous as all that

15 July, 2009
Posted in: Cork, Ireland

By default, I tend to think of Ireland as a country with a very homogenous population until the recent wave of immigration. A recent conversation with my parents made me rethink a little.

They were talking about Hadji Bey’s Turkish delight (a Cork speciality) and it occurred to me that it was unlikely to have been the brainchild of an Irish native. They moved on to talking about a family (from Iran) with whom my father’s family had been friendly. They spoke about the “old lady” who spoke broken English and the children who became fully integrated (always a particular challenge in Cork).

Then there were all the Lithuanians in Cork (which my husband says boasts some of the most unusual surnames in Ireland). They were going to America but stopped off in Cork for reasons which are unclear to me and probably to them too. And then there were the Dutch butter merchants from the 18th century. And come to think of it, my mother is probably a Palatine (her grandmother’s maiden name was very germanic and a bit odd). There were Hungarian refugees in my mother’s class in school and one of them subsequently had a very handsome son who was a couple of years ahead of my brother in school. There were Vards the furriers who were very exotic, probably Jewish, I reckon (my mother remembers one of them in college arguing strongly against going to fight the communists in Hungary – he felt there was no point and thus the Hungarian uprising of ’56 was denied the assistance of a bunch of UCC students).

Perhaps, immigration is not the recent phenomenon we’ve been led to believe.

Reunited

23 June, 2009
Posted in: Cork, Ireland

This may be a dull post for those who were not in my class in college (most of you, as far as I know), so read on at your peril.

I went to my 20 year college reunion recently. Over a third of the class of sixty showed up which wasn’t bad given that it was at short notice.

Several surprising things: everyone was almost exactly the same, only grown-up; several of the people I hadn’t spoken to 20 years ago turned out to be very pleasant despite my prejudices at the time; almost everyone has three children; almost everyone is practising as a solicitor; nobody was at all competitive about what he/she was doing. One woman opined that it was far better than her school reunion where, if you hadn’t a site in Kinsale, you were no one. Alright, one man mentioned that he was doing up a house in Goleen, but that’s really not the same thing at all…

One very unsurprising thing: if they were at all interested, most people had a vague idea what others were up to – “My friend A is a friend of your friend the Dutch Mama and I heard you were back in Ireland, kind of thing.” This happens to Irish people all the time. It’s one of the joys and one of the curses of coming from a small country.

I suppose, when I started studying law in college, I hadn’t really thought of it as a vocational subject, more a good grounding. I was wrong there. Aside from me, one man who had become a primary school teacher, one woman who married a well-known hotelier and two or three women who were not working outside the home (dreadful expression but it is important to acknowledge that dealing with toddler tantrums is much more work than hanging round in court could ever be), every single person was working in law and even the women working in the home were qualified solicitors who planned to go back to it when the children were bigger. In fact, even the hotelier’s wife and I had qualified as solicitors, I think on the basis that it was something we could always go back to, if we needed the money. However, the current downturn, is making that look pretty unlikely, should the need arise. Just as well, I couldn’t convey a broom at this stage.

I thought they were a very nice bunch – mostly country solicitors from market towns, the backbone of rural Ireland (that sounds a bit patronising but it’s not meant to be, oh for better writing skills) though only one election agent (to my astonishment, I expected half a dozen). It was like meeting new people in many ways but with something useful as a starting point for conversation. I was surprised how little I knew about my former classmates. I was chatting to one guy and telling him about my husband’s grandfather playing senior hurling for Tipperary (v. exciting recent discovery) and he said that his own father had won two all-Ireland hurling medals with Tipperary. The glory, the glamour. All unknown at the time. True, I did know that one classmate’s mother had been at boarding school with my mother but that was largely due to badgering by her mother and mine rather than any particular initiative on our part. It made me feel that my mother had some justification when she used to drive me demented by asking me the names of the parents of new college acquaintances (“would that be Murphy the chemist?”). I now realise that I have turned into her and I was fascinated by where these people were from and who their parents were and, with any luck, I will live to torture my misfortunate children along similar lines.

What it really brought home to us was how young we had all been. Most of us were 17 when we started college and 20 when we finished. The mature students in the class who we thought were ancient were only 24 or 25. As one former classmate said “what on earth can you be expected to understand about law of all things when you are 17?” I’d say our excellent memories stood us in good stead for the exams but it was probably many years before most of us understood the practical implications of the theories we had learnt.

At about 2 o’clock a select group of us went to a chipper near the pub to do a post mortem of the evening and relive our student past; our conclusions, you will be delighted to hear, were broadly positive. The moral is, go to your reunion, you might like it more than you think.